Carry On, Tasha
by Tides of Love
Summary: Hi, I'm Natasha Redella Pitch, but everyone calls Tasha. I don't usually sleep but when I do I have vivid nightmares. I'm an awesome sister and friend.*AN* I suck at summaries, sorry
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: I, Xander Price, recently rewrote this and change the formatting to match the original story because I didn't like where I was taking the story. So, here is the new version, I hope you enjoy!

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Baz

It's unnecessarily grandiose to use **Open Sesame** on the doors but I do it anyway because I know everyone will be in the dining hall, I may as well make an entrance.

I wanted it this way. I wanted to be on the person who got to break the news that I'm back.

Snow is the first person to react-leaps to his feet, sends furniture flying. Its work not roll my eyes. (It's a bit of work not to stare at him. He's thin. And drawn. Normally, he'd be back to clobbering weight by now.)

Dev and Niall, bless them, act like I've arrived eight minutes late to breakfast, instead of eight weeks. Dev nudges Niall, and Niall gives me a bored once-over then moves the teapot away from my spot, which they've left empty. Good men.

I walk over to the serving table to make up a plate. I pretend I'm not ferociously hungry. (I feel like I'll always be hungry now.)

Snow is still standing. His meddling sidekick is yanking on his sleeve trying to get him to sit down. He should listen to her. Wait what's this? ... Where's Wellbelove in this pretty tableau? I scan the room without turning my head. There she is, sitting on the other side of the room-trouble in paradise? - staring at me. They're all staring at me. But I can tell Wellbelove expects extra from me, so I give it to her. A long, cool look. Let her make what she wants that; she will anyway.

I also see my cousin giving me the "We need to talk, but I can wait," look. Good, I don't feel up to much of anything.

I settle down at the table and Dev pours me a cup of tea.

"Baz," he says, smirking.

"Gentlemen," I say. "What have I missed?"


	2. Chapter 2

Baz

Snow stands again when I walk into the Greek classroom. I take my seat without looking at his way. "Enough, Snow. I'm not the Queen."

He doesn't reply- he must be still working up a bluster.

Snow blusters like no one else. _But! I! I mean! Um! It's just!_ It's no wonder he can never spit out a spell.

"Please sit down, Simon." My favorite cousin (of all my cousins), Natasha Pitch, better know as Tasha, is completely unfazed and calm.

Snow obligates.

The Minotaur folds his arms and snorts when he sees me. "Mr. Pitch," he says. "I see you've decided to join us."

"I have, sir."

"We'll have to discuss your plans to catch up."

"Of course, sir. Though I think you'll find I'm still quite ahead of the class; my mother always insisted on summer work in Greek and Latin." It's good to mention my mother to the older teachers. They all still remember her-I can see their heads start to dip into a bow.

The Minotaur worked the grounds when my mother was headmistress; creatures weren't allowed on staff then. I dare him to hold that against me.

I dare them fucking all.

"We shall see," He says, narrowing his cow eyes. "Yes, Miss Pitch?"

"Sir, I could help him get caught up." Tasha says in her usual calm tone.

"Are you caught up yourself, Miss Pitch?" He says, again narrowing his cow eyes.

"Yes, sir. I am."

"Fine then."

I'm not lying. Neither is Tasha. Greek isn't a problem for either of us- and I'll be fine in Latin, Magic Words and Elocution. Political Science could be a bear, depending on how much they've covered. Same with History and Astrology.

I'm going to break my back to get first again (though Tasha will help), and I can't imagine Coach Mac will let me back on the team…

They might all cut me some slack if I told them I'd been kidnapped.

I am never telling _anyone_ I was kidnapped.

Kidnapped. And by the fucking numpties, no less.

Numpties are like trolls, but even more hideous. They're big and stupid, and they're always cold. They go around wrapped in blankets and dressing gowns if they have them, and if they don't, they cover themselves in leaves and mud and old newspapers. They usually lived under bridges. Because they _like_ to live under bridges. And they're just smart enough to hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to their hovel, if there's something in it for them.

Aunt Fiona was appalled when she found me in the numpty den. She berated me all the way home and all the way back to Watford. She made me sit in the back seat of her MG. (A '67. Glorious.) " _The front seat_ _is for people who've_ _never been_ _kidnapped by bloody numpties. Jesus_ _Christ, Baz._ (Aunt Fiona swears like a Normal. She thinks she's punk. It drives Tasha mental.)

I could tell she was half disgusting with me, half relieved that I was still alive.

I'd been stuck under that bridge for six weeks, in a coffin- and I don't even think the numpties were _trying_ to torture me.

I think they thought it was humane treatment for a vampire. So to speak. They even brought me blood. (I decided not to think about where they got it.) They did _not_ bring me food. Most people don't realize vampires need both. Most people don't know fuck-all about vampires…

 _I_ know fuck-all about vampires. It's not like I got an instruction pamphlet when I was bitten.

The numpties kept me in the coffin for six weeks, and every day or so, they threw in some blood. (In a thirty-two-ounce plastic cup with a bendy straw.) I can go without longer than regular people, but I was pretty ruined when Fiona got there.

Fortunately, my aunt is an utter badass. She laid waste to the numpties before she found my coffin; then she bombarded me with healing magic. _**"Early**_ _ **to bed and early to rise!"**_ She kept whispering. And, _**"Get well soon!"**_

(It reminded me of the day I was Turned- Fiona and my father both hitting me with healing spells that mended the bite marks and bruises but didn't touch the changes already churning inside me.)

I was still weak when Fiona helps me out of the coffin.

"All right?" She asked.

"Hungry. Thirsty."

She kicked a dead numpty- they look like giant stones when they die, great heaps of mud and grey matter- "Can you drink one of these?"

I sneered. "No." Numpty blood is swampy and blackish, definitely non-potable. Which is probably why someone sent them after me.

"I'll take you to McDonald's." She said.

"Take me to school."

Fiona bought me three Big Mac's, and I swallowed the first one in two bites-it came right back up. "You're a wreck, Basil. I'm taking you home."

"It's September, take me to school."

"It's October, I'm taking you home to rest."

"It's October? Take me to school, Fiona. Now." I wipe my mouth on my shirt. I'm still in my tennis whites- the numpties had nabbed me outside the club; my clothes are stained in every way imaginable and newly vomited on.

Fiona shook her head. "School doesn't matter now, boyo. We're in the middle of a war."

"We're always in the middle of a war. Take me back to Watford-I'll be damned if Penelope Bunce finishes our last year at the top of the class."

"Baz, everything is different now. You've been kidnapped. And held for ransom."

I leaned on her car. "Is that why the numpties didn't kill me? Because you the ransom?"

"Fuck no, Pitches have never paid ransoms, and we're not staring now."

"I'm the only male heir!"

"That's just what your father said. He wanted to pay up. I told him I knew my sister had scraped bottom when she married a Grimm, but I wasn't letting him have any more of our pride. No offense, Basil." She handed me another Big Mac-"Try again. Slower."

I took a bite. "Why'd they kidnap me?" I ask through three layers of bun and two all-beef patties.

"They said they wanted money. Then they wanted wands."

"What would numpties want with wands?"

"They wouldn't! The question is who hired them. Or who won them over... I don't know how you get a numpty to do you bidding; maybe just bring them hot water bottles. They kept call us from your mobile, until it died. Your dad thinks they took you, they tried to figure out later what to do with you. But it all smells like the Mage to me. It's not enough that he's laid us low; he wants ever that's ever made us powerful."

"You think _the Mage_ had me kidnapped? The headmaster of my school?"

"I think the Mage is capable of anything," She said. "Don't you?"

I did think so. But Fiona blames everything on the Mage. So. It's hard to take her seriously, even after she's just murdered someone to save your life.

Mostly, at that moment, I was thinking about lying down.

"Oh," Fiona said. "Here." She fished my wand- polished ivory with a leather hilt-out of her giant handbag and stuck it in my shorts pocket. I pull it out. "So," She said. "Obviously, you are _not_ going back to that school, right into that bastard's clutches."

"I am so."

" _Basilton_ " Full name, all three syllables.

"He's not going to bother me at school," I argued, "not with everyone watching."

"Baz, we have to get serious. He's attacked our family _again_ , directly."

"I am serious. I'm more valuable as a spy then as a soldier, anyway-that's what the Families have always said."

"That's what we said when you were a child. You're a man, now."

"I'm a _student_ ," I said. "What do you think my mother would say if she knew you were pulling out of school? And isn't Tasha there, right now?"

Fiona huffed and shook her head. We were still standing at the side of the road. She opened the car door for me. "Get in, you manipulative cur."

"Only if you take me back to Watford."

"I'm taking you home first. Your father and Daphne want to see you."

"And then to Watford."

She pulled me towards the car. "Jesus. Yes. If you still want to go."

Of course I still wanted to go to Watford …

… Once I'd seen my father. Once my stepmother had wept over me. Once I'd slept for twelve hours under a new barrage of healing spells. I stayed in bed a fortnight. They all tried to talk me into staying longer.

Even Vera, my old nanny was brought in to apply some guilt. (Vera's a Normal. She rationalizes all our strangeness by pretending we're in the Mafia. Father spells her innocent whenever it gets to be too much for her.)

But after two weeks, I got up out of bed, packed my bags, and went and sat in the front seat of Fiona's car.

"I'll steal it if I have to!" I shouted up the drive. "Or I'll steal a bus!"

There was no way that I wasn't going back to school—this is my last year. Last year in the tower. Last year on the pitch. Last year to torment Snow before our antagonism turns into something more permanent and less entertaining.

My last year at Watford, the last place I saw my mother …

I was damn well going back. Aunt Fiona stomped out in her heavy black Doc Martens boots (clichéd) and opened my door. "Back seat," she said. "Front seat is for people who haven't been kidnapped by fucking numpties."

I can feel Snow staring at me all through Greek—actually feel it. He's so worked up, his magic is leaking out all over the place.

Sometimes when he gets like this, I'm tempted to pull him aside. " _Deep breaths now, Snow. Let it go. Some of it. Before you start another fire. Whatever it is you're worried about, this won't help._ "

I never do, though. Pull him aside. Or talk him down. Instead I just poke him until he goes off.

That's what Snow does best. He doesn't plan or strike—he just goes off, and when he does, he takes down everything in his path.

He's half a fucking numpty himself. The Mage gives him mittens and blankets, and Snow goes off in whatever direction the Mage points him in. I've seen it. I've probably seen it more than anyone but Bunce and Tasha.

The way Snow starts to blur and shimmer. Like a jet engine. The way sparks pop and flare in his aura. The light reflects in his hair and his pupils contract until his eyes are thick blue. He's usually holding his sword, so that's where the flame starts—whipping around his hands and wrists, licking up the blade. It makes him mental. His brain blinks out, I think, about the time he starts swinging. Eventually the power pours off him in waves. Flattening, blackening waves. It's more power than the rest of us ever have access to. More power than we can imagine. Spilling out of him like he's a cup left under a waterfall.

I've seen it happen close up, standing right at his side. If Snow knows you're there, he shields you. I don't know how he does it, I don't even know why. It's just like him, really, to use what little control he has to protect other people.

The Minotaur is droning now. Conjugating verbs I've known since I was 11. I can feel Snow's eyes on the back of my head. I can smell his magic. Smoky. Sticky. Like green wood in a campfire. The people sitting around us are getting stupid and drunk from it. Except Tasha is completely unfazed, because she's a bloody powerhouse herself. I watch Bunce try to shake it off—she's glaring at him. He's glaring at me.

I turn my head just enough to let him see my lip curl.


	3. Chapter 3

Simon

I go back to our room as soon as lessons are over for the day, but Baz isn't there. His clothes are in his wardrobe. His bed is made. His bottles and tubes are back on the bathroom counter.

I open the windows even though it's freezing out; I've been overheating all day. Penelope practically had to hold me down at breakfast. I wanted to rush over to Baz and demand to know where he'd been. I wanted—I think I just wanted to make sure it was really him. I mean … It's obviously him.

Baz is back.

Baz is alive. Or as alive as he gets.

He looked awful today, even paler than usual. He's thinner than usual, too, and there's something off about the way he's moving—a drag. Like he's got stones of different weights tied to each limb.

I just want to run him down and knock him over and figure it all out. What's wrong with him.

Where he's been …

I wait in our room until dinner, but Baz doesn't come back. Then he ignores me in the dining hall.

He ignores Agatha, too. (She's staring at him as much as I am—but I don't think she's as worried that he might have come back to kill her.) She's sitting alone at a table, and I can't decide whether that makes me sad or angry. Whether Agatha herself makes me sad or angry. Or even what I'm supposed to be feeling about her. I can't think right now.

"I was thinking we could study in the library tonight," Penny says at dinner, as if I'm not literally fuming.

"I'm gonna have to talk to him sometime," I say.

"No, you aren't," she says. "When do the two of you ever talk, anyway?"

"I'm gonna have to face him."

Tasha leans over her cottage pie. "That's what we're worried about, Simon. You need to cool down first."

"I'm cool."

"Simon. You're never cool." Penny says.

"That hurts, Penny."

"It shouldn't. It's one of the reasons we love you."

"I just—I need to know where he's been.…"

"Well, he's not going to tell you." Tasha shakes her head. "I know that for a fact."

"Maybe he'll tell me something without meaning to, in the process of not telling me. What is he even up to? He looks like he's been in some American terror prison."

"Maybe he's been sick."

Curses, I never thought of that either. Every scenario I thought up had Baz hidden away, plotting somewhere. Maybe he was sick and plotting.…

"No matter what the truth is," Penny says, "it won't help to pick a fight with him."

"I won't."

"Simon, you do. Every year. As soon as you see him. And I just think that maybe you shouldn't this time. Something's happening. Something bigger than Baz. The Mage has practically disappeared, and Premal has been on some secret assignment for weeks—my mum says he's stopped returning her texts."

"Is she worried about him?"

"She's always worried about Premal."

"Are you worried about him?"

Penny looks down. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry—should we try to find him?"

She looks back up at me sternly. "Mum says no. She says we need to wait and pay attention. I think she and Dad are asking around, covertly, and she doesn't want us drawing a lot of attention to them. Which is why you need to cool down. Just—keep your eyes open. Observe. Don't knock over any furniture or kill anything."

"You two always say that," I sigh. "But then when it's us or them, you want me to kill something."

"We never want you to kill, Simon."

"I never feel like I have a choice."

"I know." She smiles at me. Sadly. So does Tasha.

"Don't kill Baz tonight." Tasha says, ruffling my hair. "Later, I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"I won't. Later, Tasha."

But I'm probably gonna have to kill him someday, and we all know it.

Penelope lets me go back to my room after dinner, and she doesn't try to follow—she's stuck with Trixie and her girlfriend now that Baz is back in town. "Gay people have an unfair advantage!" she complains.

"Only when it comes to visiting their roommates," I say.

She's decent enough not to argue.

I'm nervous when I get to the top of the stairs. I still don't know what I'm going to say to him.

"Nothing," I hear Penny say in my head. "Do your schoolwork, go to bed."

As if it's ever that easy.

Sharing a room with the person you hate most is like sharing a room with a siren. (The kind on police cars, not the kind who try to entrap you when you cross the English Channel.) You can't ignore that person, and you never get used to them. It never stops being painful.

Baz and I have spent seven years grimacing and growling at each other. (Him grimacing, me growling.) We both stay away from our room as much as we can when we know the other is there, and when we can't avoid each other, we do our best not to make eye contact. I don't talk to him. I don't talk in front of him. I never let him see anything that he might take back to his bitch aunt, Fiona.

I try not to call women bitches, but Baz's aunt Fiona once spelled my feet into the dirt. I know it was her; I heard her say, " **Stand your ground**!"

And twice I've caught her trying to sneak into the Mage's office. "It's my sister's office," she said.

"I just like to visit it sometimes."

She might have been telling the truth. Or she might have been trying to depose the Mage.

And that's the problem with all the Pitches and their allies—it's impossible to tell when they're up to something and when they're just being people.

There have been years when I thought maybe I could figure out their plan if I just paid enough attention to Baz. (Fifth year.) And years when I decided that living with him was painful enough, that I couldn't keep tabs on him, as well. (Last year.)

In the early days, there wasn't any strategy or decision. Just the two of us scuffling in the halls and kicking the shit out of each other two or three times a year.

I used to beg the Mage for a new roommate, but that's not how it works. The Crucible cast Baz and me together on the very first day of school.

All the first years are cast that way. The Mage builds a fire in the courtyard, the upper years help, and the littluns stand in a circle around it. The Mage sets the Crucible—it's an actual crucible, maybe the oldest thing at Watford—in the middle of the fire and says the incantation; then everyone waits for the iron inside to melt.

It's the strangest feeling when the magic starts to work on you. I was worried that it wouldn't work on me—because I was an outsider. All the other kids started moving towards each other, and I still didn't feel anything. I thought about faking it, but I didn't want to get caught and booted out.

And then I did feel the magic, like a hook in my stomach.

I stumbled forward and looked around, and Baz was walking towards me. Looking so cool. Like he was coming my way because he wanted to, not because there was a mystical magnet in his gut.

The magic doesn't stop until you and your new roommate shake hands—I held my hand out to Baz immediately. But he just stood there for as long as he could stand it. I don't know how he resisted the pull; I felt like my intestines were going to burst out and wrap around him.

"Snow," he said.

"Yeah," I said, waggling my hand. "Here."

"The Mage's Heir."

I nodded, but I didn't even know what that meant back then. The Mage made me his heir so I'd have a place at Watford. That's also why I have his sword. It's a historic weapon—it used to be given to the Mage's Heir, back when the title of Mage was passed through families instead of appointed by the Coven.

The Mage gave me a wand, too—bone with wooden handle, it was his father's—so I'd have my own magickal instrument. You have to have magic in you, and a way to get it out of you; that's the basic requirement for Watford and the basic requirement to be a magician. Every magician inherits some family artifact. Baz and Tasha have wands, like me; all the Pitches are wand-workers. But Penny has a ring.

And Gareth has a belt buckle. (It's really inconvenient—he has to thrust his pelvis forward whenever he wants to cast a spell. He seems to think it's cheeky, but no one else does.)

Penelope thinks my hand-me-down wand is part of the reason my spell work is such shit—my wand isn't bound to me by blood. It doesn't know what to do with me. After seven years in the World of Mages, I still reach for my sword first; I know it'll come when I call. My wand comes, but then, half the time, it plays dead.

The first time I asked the Mage for a new roommate was a few months after Baz and I started living together. The Mage wouldn't hear of it—though he knew who Baz was, and knew better than I did that the Pitches are snakes and traitors.

"Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford," he said. His voice was gentle but firm. "The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You're to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers."

"Yeah, but, sir…" I was sitting in that giant leather chair up in his office, the one with three horns attached to the top. "The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate's a complete wanker. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He was practically cackling."

The Mage just sat on his desk, stroking his beard. "The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You're meant to watch out for him."

He kept giving me the same answer until I gave up asking. He even said no the time there was proof that Baz had tried to feed me to a chimera.

Baz admitted it, then argued that the fact that he'd failed was punishment enough. And the Mage agreed with him!

Sometimes the Mage doesn't make any sense to me.…

It was only in the last few years that I realized the Mage makes me stay with Baz to keep Baz under his thumb. Which means, I hope—I think—that the Mage trusts me. He thinks I'm up for the job.

I decide to take a shower and shave while Baz is still gone. I only nick myself twice, which is better than usual. When I get out, wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a towel around my neck, Baz is by his bed, unpacking his schoolbag.

His head whips up, and his face is all twisted. He looks like I've already laid into him.

"What are you doing?" he snarls through his teeth.

"Taking a shower. What's your problem?"

"You," he says, throwing his bag down. "Always you."

"Hello, Baz. Welcome back."

He looks away from me. "Where's your necklace?" His voice is low.

"My what?"

I can't see his whole face, but it looks like his jaw is working.

"Your cross."

My hand flies to my throat and then to the cuts on my chin. My cross. I took it off weeks ago.

I hurry over to my bed and dig it out, but I don't put it on. Instead I walk around Baz and stand in his space until he has to look at me. He does. His teeth are clenched, and his head is tipped back and to the side, like he's just waiting for me to make the first move.

I hold the cross out with both hands. I want him to acknowledge what it is, what it means. Then I lift it up over my head and let it settle gently around my neck. My eyes are locked on Baz's, and he doesn't look away, though his nostrils flare.

When the cross is around my neck again, his eyelids dip, and he squares his shoulders.

"Where have you been?" I ask.

His eyes flick back up to mine. "None. Of your. Business."

I feel my magic surge and try to shove it down. "You look like shit, you know."

He looks even worse now that I can see him up close. There's a grey film over him—even over his eyes, which are always grey.

Baz's eyes are usually the kind of grey that happens when you mix dark blue and dark green together. Deep-water grey. Today they're the colour of wet pavement.

He huffs a laugh. "Thank you, Snow. You're looking rough and weedy yourself."

I am, and it's his fault. How was I supposed to eat and sleep, knowing he was out there, plotting against me? And now he's here, and if he's not going to tell me anything useful, I might as well throttle him for putting me through it.

Or … I could do my homework.

I'll just do my homework.

I try. I sit at my desk, and Baz sits on his bed. And eventually he leaves without saying anything, and I know that he's going down to the Catacombs to hunt rats. Or to the Wood to hunt squirrels.

And I know that once he killed and drained a merwolf, but I don't know why—its body washed up onto the edge of the moat. (I hate the merwolves almost as much as Baz does. They're not intelligent, I don't think, but they're still evil.)

I go to bed after Baz leaves, but I don't go to sleep. He's only been back a day, and I already feel like I need to know where he is at every moment. It's fifth year all over again.

When he finally does come back to our room, smelling like dust and decay, I close my eyes.

That's when I remember about his mum.


	4. Chapter 4

Tasha

Baz and I have been raised together just as if we were twins. It does help that have the exact same birthday.

We always knew we cousins, of course. Mother, as I will always call her, told us anything we wanted to know.

After she died, no one told Baz or I anything, not even Father. We just had to know. We had to figured ourselves out. Put ourselves back together.

I have had nightmares everytime I sleep, without fail, since I was five. I used to wake up screaming then I trained my brain to control and ignore nightmare. Now, eighty percent of the time I don't sleep at all. The other ten I have someone to sleep in bed with me.

That's why I am the way I and why I respond to people completely unfased and calm no matter what. Because I've seen and heard much worse, in person and in my nightmare.

I say this but some people still piss me off; for example, Agatha pisses me off.

Merlin, I hate Agatha.

Agatha was always a little jealous of Pen and I.

Even if I like Simon, I'd have no chance with him. Luckily, I have a boyfriend (I've had the same boyfriend for four years now) that I'm helplessly in love with. I've never had a crush Simon, anyway. Pen has Micah, how that works I'll never understand, and she's never wanted Simon. I love Penny, but she's just so unpredictable.

I don't hate Agatha for any of that, no, I hate her because she's always been prejudice towards me for being a Pitch.

Christ, I sound like Penny.

Baz once said I sound mental when I swear like a Normal and that the nuts must not fall far from the tree.

I punched him.

"Natasha! That hurt." He yelled, clutching his arm.

"Do I look like a fucking suicidal bitch?" I ask.

"Well, no." He replied, shrugging.

"Merlin and Morgana, Basil. I started swearing like a Normal to be like Fia, and now it's just a habit."

"Oh, I didn't know that…"

"Exactly. Don't judge what you don't know."

"Love you, Tasha."

"Love you too, Basil."

Last year was the first time my birth father reached out to meet me and I said hell no. He came anyway. Let's just say he is banned from seeing me. Praise Merlin. Especially since he was wanted by both the Normal police and the Merry Men- Mage's Men. He wasn't there for me when he should've been.

With all that said, I had to come back to Watford. This was the last place I saw the only mother I've ever known.

I am Natasha Pitch. And I am proud.


	5. Chapter 5

Baz

The operative word there is "hopeless."

That was evident the moment I realized I'd be the one who was most miserable if I ever succeeded in doing Snow in.

It dawned on me during our fifth year. When Snow followed me around like a dog tied to my ankle. When he wouldn't give me a _single_ moment of solace to sort through my feelings—or try to wank them away. (Which I eventually tried that summer. To no avail.)

I wish I'd never figured it out. That I love him.

It's only ever been a torment.

Sharing a room with the person you want most is like sharing a room with an open fire.

He's constantly drawing you in. And you're constantly stepping too close. And you know it's not good—that there is no good—that there's absolutely nothing that can ever come of it.

But you do it anyway.

And then …

Well. Then you burn.

Snow says I'm obsessed with fire. I'd argue that's an inevitable side effect of being flammable.

I mean, I guess everyone's flammable, ultimately—but vampires are oily rags. We're flash paper.

The cruel joke of it is that I come from a long line of fire magicians—two long lines, the Grimms and the Pitches. I'm brilliant with fire. As long as I don't get too close.

No …

The cruel joke of it is that Simon Snow smells like smoke. Snow whimpers—he's plagued by nightmares, we both are—and rolls onto his back, one arm reaching for a moment before he lets it fall over his head. His ridiculous curls tumble back onto the pillow. Snow wears his hair short on the back and on the sides, but the top is a thatch of loose curls. Golden brown. It's dark now, but I can still see the colour.

I know his skin, too. Another shade of gold, the fairest. Snow never tans, but there are freckles on his shoulders, and moles scattered all over his back and chest, his arms and legs. Three moles on his right cheek, two below his left ear, one over his left eye.

It doesn't do me any good to know all this. But I'm not sure it makes it any worse either. I'm not sure it could _get_ any worse.

The windows are open; Snow sleeps with them open all year long unless I throw a snit about it. It's easier to sleep with extra blankets on my bed than to complain. I've got used to the weight of them against me.

I'm tired. And full. I can feel the blood sloshing around in my stomach—it's probably going to wake me up to piss.

Snow moans again, and tosses back onto his side.

I'm home. Finally.

I fall asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Tasha

Baz and I have been raised together just as if we were twins. It does help that have the exact same birthday.

We always knew we cousins, of course. Mother, as I will always call her, told us anything we wanted to know.

After she died, no one told Baz or I anything, not even Father. We just had to know. We had to figured ourselves out. Put ourselves back together.

I have had nightmares everytime I sleep, without fail, since I was five. I used to wake up screaming then I trained my brain to control and ignore nightmare. Now, eighty percent of the time I don't sleep at all. The other ten I have someone to sleep in bed with me.

That's why I am the way I and why I respond to people completely unfased and calm no matter what. Because I've seen and heard much worse, in person and in my nightmare.

I say this but some people still piss me off; for example, Agatha pisses me off.

Merlin, I hate Agatha.

Agatha was always a little jealous of Pen and I.

Even if I like Simon, I'd have no chance with him. Luckily, I have a boyfriend (I've had the same boyfriend for four years now) that I'm helplessly in love with. I've never had a crush Simon, anyway. Pen has Micah, how that works I'll never understand, and she's never wanted Simon. I love Penny, but she's just so unpredictable.

I don't hate Agatha for any of that, no, I hate her because she's always been prejudice towards me for being a Pitch.

Christ, I sound like Penny.

Baz once said I sound mental when I swear like a Normal and that the nuts must not fall far from the tree.

I punched him.

"Natasha! That hurt." He yelled, clutching his arm.

"Do I look like a fucking suicidal bitch?" I ask.

"Well, no." He replied, shrugging.

"Merlin and Morgana, Basil. I started swearing like a Normal to be like Fia, and now it's just a habit."

"Oh, I didn't know that…"

"Exactly. Don't judge what you don't know."

"Love you, Tasha."

"Love you too, Basil."

Last year was the first time my birth father reached out to meet me and I said hell no. He came anyway. Let's just say he is banned from seeing me. Praise Merlin. Especially since he was wanted by both the Normal police and the Merry Men- Mage's Men. He wasn't there for me when he should've been.

With all that said, I had to come back to Watford. This was the last place I saw the only mother I've ever known.

I am Natasha Pitch. And I am proud.


	7. Chapter 7

Baz

Snow doesn't give a shit about waking me up.

He likes to be the first person down to breakfast, Chomsky knows why. It's 6 A.M., and he's already banging around our room like a cow who accidentally wandered up here.

The windows are still open, and the sunlight is pouring in. I'm fine in sunlight—that's another myth. But I don't like it. It stings a bit, especially first thing in the morning. Snow suspects, I think, and is constantly opening the curtains.

I guess we used to fight more about stuff like this.

And then I almost killed him, and squabbling over the curtains suddenly felt ridiculous. Snow will tell you I tried to kill him our third year. With the chimera. But I was only trying to scare him that day—I wanted to see him wet his pants and cry. Instead he went off like an H-bomb.

He also says I tried to throw him down a flight of stairs the next year. Really, we were fighting at the top of the staircase, and I got in a lucky punch that sent him flying. Then, when Tasha asked me if I'd pushed Simon Snow down a flight of stairs, I said, "Fuck yes I did."

But the next year, fifth year, I actually did try to take Snow down. I hated him so much that spring. I hated the sight of him—I hated what the sight of him did to me. When Fiona told me she'd found a way to "take the Mage's Heir out of our way," I was more than willing to help. She gave me the pocket recorder, an ancient thing with an actual tape, and warned me not to speak when it was on; she made me swear on my mother's grave.

I don't know what I was expecting to happen.… I felt like I was in a spy movie, standing by the gates and pushing the button in my pocket the moment I could see Snow start to lose his temper.

Maybe I thought I was entrapping him.…

Maybe I did think it would hurt him—or kill him.

Maybe I didn't think anything could kill him.

Then came Philippa bloody Stainton running across the lawn to embarrass herself. (She wouldn't leave Snow alone that year, even though he clearly wasn't interested.) The recorder swallowed up her voice in one horrible squeak, like a mouse being sucked up in a vacuum. I hit stop as soon as I heard her.… It was too late.

Snow knew I did it, but he couldn't prove anything. And no one else could either—I hadn't touched my wand. I hadn't said a word. Aunt Fiona was hardly bothered by the mistake. "Philippa Stainton—she's not one of ours, is she?" I remember handing the recorder back to my aunt, thinking of the magic she must have poured into it. Wondering where she got that much magic.

"Don't look so glum, Basil," Fiona said, taking it from me. "We'll get him next time."

A few days later, in Magic Words, Miss Possibelf assured us all that Philippa would be fine. But she never came back to Watford.

I'll never forget Philippa's face when her voice ran out. I'll never forget Snow's.

That's the last time I tried to hurt him. Permanently.

I throw curses at Snow. I harass him. I _think_ about killing him all the time, and someday I'll have to try—but until then, what's the point?

I'm going to lose.

On that day. When Snow and I actually have to fight each other.

I might be immortal. (Maybe. I don't know whom to ask.) But I'm the kind of immortal you can still cut down or light on fire.

Snow is … something else.

When he goes off, he's more of an element than a magician. I don't think our side will ever put him out or contain him, but I know—I know—that I have to do my part. We're at war. The Humdrum may have killed my mother, but the Mage will drive my whole family out of magic. Just to make an example of us. He's already taken our influence. Drained our coffers. Blackened our name. We're all just waiting for the day he takes the nuclear option—

 _Snow_ is the nuclear option. With Snow tucked in his belt, the Mage is omnipotent. He can make us do anything.… He can make us go away.

I can't let that happen. This is my world, the World of Mages. I have to do my part to fight for it. Even if I know I'm going to lose.

Snow is standing in front of his wardrobe now, trying to find a clean shirt. He stretches one arm over his head, and I watch the muscles shifting in his shoulders.

All I do is lose.

I sit up and throw my covers off. Snow startles and grabs a shirt.

"Forget that I'm here?" I ask.

I stride over to my wardrobe and lay my trousers and shirt over my arm. I don't know why Snow lingers over his clothes like he has big decisions to make. He wears his uniform every day, even on the weekend.

When I close my wardrobe door, he's staring at me. He looks unsettled. I'm not sure what I've done to unsettle him, but I sneer anyway, just to drive it home.

I get dressed in the bathroom. Snow and I have never dressed in front of each other; it's an extension of our mutual paranoia. And thank snakes for that—my life is painful enough.

When I'm dressed and ready and back in our room, Snow is still standing near his bed, shirt on but not buttoned, tie hanging round his neck. His hair actually looks worse than it did when he woke up, like he's been tearing his hands through the curls.

He freezes and looks up at me.

"What's wrong, Snow? Cat got your tongue?"

He flinches. **Cat got your tongue** is a wicked spell, and I used it against him twice when we were third years.

"Baz," he clears his throat. "I—"

"Am a disgrace to magic?"

He rolls his eyes. "I—"

"Spit it out, Snow. You'd think you were trying to cast a spell. _Are_ you? Next time, use your wand, it helps."

He ransacks his hair again with one hand. "Could you just—?"

There's nothing remarkable about Snow's eyes. They're a standard size and shape. A little pouchy. And his eyelashes are stubby and dark brown. His eyes aren't even a remarkable colour. Just blue. Not cornflower. Not navy. Not shot with hazel or violet.

He blinks them at me. Stammering. I feel myself blushing. (Crowley, that's how much blood I drank last night—I'm capable of blushing.)

"No," I say, and pick up my books. "I just couldn't." I'm out the door. Down the steps. I hearSnow snarling behind me.

When he comes down to breakfast, his tie is still hanging. Bunce frowns and yanks on one end. He drops his scone and wipes his hand on his trousers before tying it. He looks up at me then, but I'm already looking away.


	8. Chapter 8

Simon

Penelope wants to eat lunch out on the Lawn. It's a warm day, she says, and the ground is dry, and we might not have another chance to picnic like this until spring.

I think she just wants to keep me away from Baz and Agatha- they've been playing games with each other all week. Taking turns staring across the dining hall, then quickly looking away. Baz always looks at me, too, to make sure I'm watching.

Everyone's still gossiping about where he's been. The most popular rumours are "dark-coming-of-age ceremony that left him too marked up to be in public" and "Ibiza."

People have been asking Tasha and she's just stays totally unfazed and in her usual calm tone says, "I don't know. And even if I did, I would tell you, now would I?" She's so awesomely calm about literally everything.

"My mother's coming into town tonight," Penny says. "We're sitting against a giant, twisting yew tree, looking out on the lawn in slightly different directions. "We're going to dinner," She says. "Want to come?"

"That's okay, thanks."

"We could go to that ramen place you like. My mum's buying."

I shake my head. "Feels like I need to keep on Baz," I say. "I still don't have a clue where he's been."

Penny signs but doesn't argue. "Tasha, how about you?"

Tasha looks up from her untouched food. "I actually need to talk to Baz. Thanks anyway, Pen."

Penny stares out onto the brown lawn. "I miss the Visitings. They were so magickal..."

I laugh.

"You know what I mean," She says. "Aunt Beryl came back to my mum, and missed it."

"What did she say?"

"The same thing she said last time! ' _Stop looking for my books. There's nothing in there for the likes of you_.'"

"Wait, she came back to tell you **not** to find her books?"

"She was a scholar like Mum and Dad. She doesn't think anyone's smart enough to touch her research."

"I can't believe your relative came back just to insult you."

"Mum says she always knew Aunt Beryl would take her bad attitude to hell with her."

"Do ghosts ever show up at the wrong place?"

"I think of them more as souls-"

"Souls, then. So they ever get lost?"

"I'm not sure." Penny turns to face me, holding out a slice of Battenberg cake. I take it.

"I know you can confuse them," Tasha says, also turning to face me. "You can try to hide their target. Like, if you're worried a 'soul' might come back and tell your secret- you can try hide the living person who might get Visited. There've even been murders. If I kill you, you can't you can't get Visited; ergo, you can't hear or tell secret."

"So the Visitors can get mixed-up..."

"Yeah, they just show up where they think someone is supposed to be. Like a living person would. Madam Bellamy said she'd seen her husband lurking at the back of her classroom a few days before he actually came through the Veil."

Just like I saw Baz's mum at the window...

"Here, I'm not hungry." Tasha adds, handing me her food.

"You okay, Nat?" This isn't like her. She usually eats more than me.

"Eh." She shrugs. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"If you say so."

I should tell them what happened, I always tell them what happened.

"Come on," Penny says, standing and brushing the dead grass off the back of her thighs. "We'll be late to class."

She holds over the napkins and plastic wrap, and spins her wrist. " **A place for everything, and everything in its place!** " They disappear.

"Waste of magic," I say out habit, picking up our satchels.

Penny rolls her eyes. "I'm so tired of hear that. We're **supposed** to use magic. What are we saving it for?"

"So, it's there if we need it."

Tasha yawns. "That's horseshit. My magic has always there when and if I need it."

"I know the official answer, Simon- thanks." Penny says, rolling her eyes again. "In America, they think that you become more powerful the more magic you use."

"Just like fossil fuels."

Penny glances over at me and snorts.

"Don't look so surprised," I say. "I know about fossil fuels."

* * *

Baz is half my lessons. There are only fifty kids in our year; there have been terms in the past when he and I have had every lesson together, all day long.

We usually sit as far apart as possible, but today in Elocution, Madam Bellamy has us push all the desks out of the way and work in pairs. Baz ends up right behind me.

Madam Bellamy hasn't been the same since her Visiting, it's like- well it's like she's just seen a ghost. She keeps making us do practical work while she wonders around the room, looking lost.

At this point, eighth year, we're past basic Elocution stuff- speaking out, hitting consonants, projection. It's all nuance now. How to give spells more power by saying them with fire and intent. How pausing just before a keyword can focus a spell.

Garth's my partner today. And most days. He's terrible at Elocution. He still drones his spells like he's reading from a cue card. They work, but they land like lead balloons. If Garth levitates something; it jerks; if he transforms something, it looks like it's happening in cheap stop-animation.

Penelope says Garth is painful to watch- and not just because of his ridiculous magic belt-buckle.

Tasha says Garth is more painful to listen to than an elephant playing a grand piano.

Baz say Garth wouldn't have even got into Watford in the old days.

Baz's elocution is flawless. So, is Tasha's. In four languages. (Though I suppose I'm just taking their word when it comes to French and Greek and Latin.)

I can hear him and Tasha behind me, rattling off cooling and warming spells one after another. I can feel the change in air on the back of neck.

"Slow down, Mr. Pitch, Miss. Pitch," Madam Bellamy says. "No need to waste magic."

I can hear the irritation in Baz's voice as starts shooting the spells out even faster. Tasha laughs and does the same.

Sometimes it's disturbing how much Baz and Penelope have in common. I've mentioned it to her before- "And," I said. "Your families both hate the Mage."

"My family is nothing like the Pitches!" She argued. "They're speciest and racist. Baz probably doesn't even think _I_ should be at Watford. No offence, Tasha."

"None taken, Pen. My family is pretty speciest and elitist. We aren't really rasist though. You definitely would get in to Watford. Your speech is flawless and your magic is amazing." Tasha replies, smiling.

"Is he racist?" I ask. "Isn't he a race? His mum looks sort of Spanish or Arabic in her painting."

"My family is Egyptian..." Tasha says, confused.

"Arabic is a language, Simon. And everyone is a race. And Baz is the whitest person I've seen.

"Only because he's a vampire." I say.

Penny rolls her eyes.

Damn it all, I have to tell Baz about his mum. Or I have to tell Penny about Baz's mum... Or even the Mage. If it wasn't the Humdrum who had Baz's mum killed, who was it? Maybe, I should talk to Tasha...

I can't keep a secret this big. I don't have the room.

* * *

Penny sneaks up to my room before she leaves that night with her mum.

She's stupidly brave- it's the only stupid thing about her- and I swear it gets worse when we go too long between emergencies. I'm tempted to slam the door when I see it's her.

"Baz will turn you in if he catches you in our tower." I say. "And you will get suspended."

She waves a hand, dismissively. "He's out on by the pitch with Tasha, watching the team practice. Pitches on the pitch.

She shoves at the door and I stop her. "Someone else will turn in, then."

"Nah. All the boys in our year are scared of me. They think I'll turn them into frogs."

"Is there a spell for that?"

"Yes, but it's enormously draining, and I'd have to kiss them to turn them back."

I sigh and let go of the door, peeking down the stairs while Penelope slips past me into my room.

"I'm just here to talk you into coming with me," She says.

"Not gonna work."

"Come on, Simon. My mum won't lecture me so much if you're around."

"She'll lecture me instead." I sit down on my bed. I've got a few books spread out there. And some old documents from the library.

"Right. It's a shared burden—hey, are you reading The Magickal Record?"

The Record is the closest thing magicians have to a newspaper. It keeps track of births and deaths, magickal bonds and laws, plus minutes from every Coven meeting. I snuck a few bound volumes from the early 2000s out of the library. "Yep," I say, "I've heard it's fascinating."

"You heard that from me," she says, "and I know you weren't listening. Why are you reading The Magickal Record?"

I look up from the books. "Have you ever heard of a magician called 'Nico' or 'Nicodemus'?"

"Like, in history?"

"No. I don't know—maybe. Just anybody. Maybe a politician or someone who was on the Coven? Or a professor?"

She's leaning against my bed. "Is this for the Mage? Are you on a mission?"

"No." I shake my head. "No, I haven't even seen him. I was—it's about Baz." Penny rolls her eyes.

"I was thinking about his mum," I say, "something I heard, that maybe she had an enemy."

"The Pitches have always had more enemies than friends."

"Right. Anyway, it's probably not important."

Penny isn't that interested, but I've asked a question, so she tries to answer it. "An enemy named Nico…" But then something in her coat pocket chimes. Her eyes get big, and she jabs her hand in her pocket.

I feel my eyes get big, too. "Do you have a phone?"

"Simon—"

"Penelope, you can't have a mobile at Watford!"

She folds her arms. "I don't see why not."

"Because of the rules. They're a security risk."

She frowns and pulls out the phone—a white iPhone, a new one. "My parents feel better if I carry it."

"How does that even work in here?" I ask. "There're supposed to be spells.…"

Penelope's checking her texts. "My mum magicked it. She's here now, at the gates—" She looks up. "—Please come with us."

"Your mum would make a terrifying supervillain."

Penny grins. "Come to dinner, Simon."

I shake my head again. "No, I want to look this stuff over before Baz comes back."

Finally, she gives in, and runs down the tower stairs like she doesn't give a fig about getting caught. I go to the window to see if I can spot Baz out on the pitch.


End file.
